


Drowning

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Dark, Found Family, Gap Filler, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts, Tag to 4.01, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: Spoilers for Season 4!Filler for the 18 month time gap for the new season, and an explanation for why Mac and Riley haven't been talking..."Mac?" Riley whispers. It's been almost three weeks since she last saw Mac in person, and he looks even more like shit than he did the last time. But now it's not just shadowed eyes and sunken cheeks and too loose clothes. Mac has bruises on his face, blood dripping from his lip, and tears glittering in his wide, unfocused eyes. His clothes are dark and sticking to him with sweat but she can tell they're torn and filthy.  "Mac, what happened?"“I didn’t know where else to go.”
Relationships: Angus MacGyver/Desiree "Desi" Nguyen, Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) & Riley Davis, Past relationship - Relationship, Riley Davis & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 72
Kudos: 161





	1. Submerged

**Author's Note:**

> So...this evil little plot bunny attacked me last night, and I can't seem to make it stop, so here we are. As usual with me, things took a very dark turn...

Riley groans at the sound of pounding at her door.  _ Damn, I thought getting out of the spy game would at LEAST mean normal human sleeping hours. _ There are plenty of things she hates about a regular life and a regular job, but being able to go to bed and sleep without wondering if her phone will go off for an urgent mission has been nice. 

She rubs sleep out of her eyes, throws a flannel over the  _ Rolling Stones _ t-shirt she slept in,  _ one of Jack’s, so sue me, Mac’s got his leather jacket so who’s coping worse, really,  _ and flicks on the lights as she walks to the door, grabbing a bottle off the counter as a weapon just in case.  _ Just because field work stopped doesn’t mean all the enemies we made will just forget us. _

The knock comes again, and Riley blinks, because she recognizes it. Or almost does. It sounds like Mac’s knock, but it’s too slow and uncertain. 

She opens the door, still holding the bottle, and gasps. 

"Mac?" Riley whispers. She can barely believe her eyes. It's been almost three weeks since she last saw Mac in person, and he looks even more like shit than he did the last time. But now it's not just shadowed eyes and sunken cheeks and too loose clothes. Mac has bruises on his face, blood dripping from his lip, and tears glittering in his wide, unfocused eyes. His clothes are dark and sticking to him with sweat but she can tell they're torn and filthy. "Mac, what happened?"

“I didn’t know where else to go,” He chokes out, and she grimaces at the strong scent of alcohol on his breath.  _ Shit, he’s been out drinking. Again. _ If she didn’t think she’d get every bone in her body broken for the trouble, she’d like to punch Desi in the face.  _ I told Mac she’d break his heart, but he didn’t listen to me. And she did.  _ Riley knows it’s a little unfair to put all the blame on Desi, but still, she’s the one who walked out and told Mac she was done, that he’d screwed things up. And he believed her. Because he believes everyone who tells him he’s messed up. Everyone who tells him he’s the one to blame for things going wrong.  _ She didn’t know him. But that’s the whole problem.  _

“Hey, it’s okay, my door’s always open. Figuratively at least.” Riley helps Mac inside, noting a terrible limp and breathing that sounds like he’s one gasp away from a sob. “Did you get in a fight?”

“No,” Mac slurs, head falling sideways as he flops onto a chair. Riley doesn’t even care that he’s getting mud and blood all over the carpet and upholstery. The tilt of his head exposes something dark on the side of his neck.  _ That looks like...no, it can’t be, he and Desi have been done for over a month.  _ A bite mark would definitely not last that long, even though Riley does remember a few.  _ Another reason she wasn’t right for him. She liked to play rough, and I don’t think he did. _

“Mac, you gotta talk to me, what happened?” She thought it was a brawl until she saw that mark. That looks…

He pushes past her with a sudden wild fear in his eyes, slams the bathroom door, and she hears a pained retching sound inside. 

“Mac?” She tries the handle but the door is locked. “Mac, let me in, you shouldn’t be alone…”

She’s not sure exactly what happened, but a terrible, terrible picture is forming in her mind. 

Then the shower turns on with a swish and she  _ knows. _

“Mac, open the door!” She pounds on it, hard, viscerally aware of every single thing in there that’s dangerous.  _ And I’m sure he can think of some I never knew about. _ “Mac, please.” Tears burn against her own eyes. 

There’s no answer, except a ragged, heartbroken sob. 

Riley glances at the doorknob. It’s weird, whoever built this place installed a keyed knob on the bathroom, for reasons she cannot explain. The key isn’t even the house key, or at least she’s never been able to get it to work. So she’s never locked the bathroom door, just in case. But now…

_ Come on, Riley. Think. It’s like a mission. How do you get past that door? What would Mac do? _ She tries to force her brain away from the idea that Mac is on the other side of it, that he shut her out.  _ He’s in danger, right now. You have to help him. _ Even if the only danger is himself. 

She rushes to the kitchen and digs through the hardware drawer, choking back a sob at the sight of a tangle of paperclips, some reshaped, some in their original form. She grabs a flat head screwdriver, and on second thought some of the unmangled paperclips.  _ Anything to distract him a little, to occupy his mind.  _

“Mac, I’m coming in there.” She jams the screwdriver between the bolt and the doorframe, and to her surprise and relief it works. The door swings open and she stumbles inside.

The whole room is full of steam, the shower must be at its hottest setting. She glances at the pile of discarded, grimy clothes, grimacing at the smell of spilled alcohol and… _ Why didn’t I notice before? _

“Mac?” She pokes her head through the billowing clouds of steam, half afraid she’ll find the shower floor running with blood and a razor blade pulled from the one on her shower shelf in Mac’s hand.

But there’s no blood. Just Mac, his skin reddened from the heat and covered with a combination of bite marks, bruises, and raised red lines like scratches. He’s huddled in the corner of the shower, sitting on the floor, sobbing. Wrenching, gasping, broken cries that shake his shoulders and echo off the tile. 

"I can't get it off me. I can't get him off," Mac sobs, clawing at his arms, his chest, with blunt fingernails, leaving more and more red gouges and a few thin trails of blood that mix with the water drops trickling down his skin. "I want it gone, I want it gone." He wails, a wretched incoherent sound of grief and misery, and crumbles forward, wrapping his arms around his knees and rocking back and forth slowly, sobbing. 

“I’m so sorry, Mac, I’m so sorry.” Riley reaches in, flinching as the hot water hits her arm through the sleeve of the flannel. “Mac…”

“Don’t touch me!” He practically screams, flinching away from her. “Stop, stop, stop. Please. Stop. Please, please don’t.” The words tumble out in a panicked, slurring litany. Riley wonders sickly if he was saying the same thing when it happened. She feels like throwing up herself. 

“Okay, Mac, I won’t. See, I’m not coming in.” She pulls her dripping arm back. “Can I at least make the water a little cooler? It’s burning you.” 

Mac makes an incoherent mumbling sound. She reaches up and turns the water back to a slightly less scalding temperature, letting the stray splatter that falls on her face mask the tears that are starting to fall. 

“Mac, listen, if...if someone…” the unspoken word hangs in the air as thick and heavy as the steam all around them. “You need to go to a hospital, there might still be something…”

“No hospital,” Mac chokes out. 

“Mac, you could get sick. You can’t ignore…”

A whimpering wail cuts her off. “What does it matter?” Mac cries, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t care, I don’t care.” Riley desperately, desperately wants to hug him, but she can’t.  _ Is this how Jack’s felt, trying to bring him out of whatever of Mac’s PTSD he’s witnessed? _ She wants to ask him what to do, ask him to tell her how to handle this, how to help, but he sent them all a message a week ago that he’s going dark. She hopes that means his op is almost over, that this is the big ending push, but she’s afraid to get her hopes up too high.  _ Jack, we need you. Mac needs you. _

“We care, Mac, I don’t want anything to happen to you. And Jack wouldn’t either,” she says softly, hoping invoking his name will somehow invoke his calming presence as well.

“He doesn’t care, he left us!” Mac sobs. “He left, he’s gone.” 

Riley has no answer for that. She doesn’t think there is one that can break through the haze of alcohol and pain and grief in Mac’s mind. Only Jack can do that, and he’s not here. 

She sits there for what feels like ages, water soaking through her sweatpants from the floor, the soaked sleeve of her flannel going chilly and clammy against her arm.

Finally, as the water begins to run colder, Mac seems to come a little bit more out of his drunken stupor, his eyes still pained but a little clearer.

“I thought I’d be safe,” He whispers dully, eyes never really meeting Riley’s, just staring down at the floor below the soaked fringe of hair. “It was one of the only good things about being out of the game. I was always so scared…” He swallows hard, a fresh round of tears streaming down his face with the water from the shower. “Every time I got captured, I thought that would be the time. The time my luck ran out. It happens to so many agents, I was sure I couldn’t be the exception.” 

Riley nods. Part of her early admission training was how to deal with a situation and the aftermath.  _ I thought it was because I was a woman. But Bozer said they all learned the same thing in spy school. _ And Cage said something once after beers around the fire that made Riley wonder. 

“When Murdoc…” Mac chokes, gasping out another halting sob. “I thought he was going to...he always acted like…” He shakes his head, water splattering off his hair onto Riley’s face and clothes. “I was so glad to get away. Whenever he looked at me…” He trails off. “And it wasn’t him after all.” He finally looks up at her. “This is my fault, I deserve it.”

“What the  _ hell? _ ” Riley asks, unable to force herself to stay calm. “Mac, how could you possibly think…”

“I should have been able to protect myself. I’m a trained agent, for fuck’s sake.” Riley never hears Mac swear, not like this. Not even when he drinks. If anything, he’s a clumsy drunk, not an angry one.  _ Which is probably what happened. Mac tends to be a little awkward on his best days, alcohol makes it worse. _ Someone saw an easy target. “I should have been able to fight him off. I’ve lost my edge, Riley, I’m no good at this anymore.” Mac sniffles and wipes the back of his hand across his face, looking suddenly like a small child. “Maybe it’s a good thing they kicked me out before I got someone killed.”

“Mac, that is a lie and you know it.” Riley says, wanting to grab his shoulders and make him look at her but settling for using her best authoritative Jack voice. “This was not your fault. It wasn’t your job to be able to fight him off, he should have left you alone, you hear me?” She whispers, voice shattering. “Mac, you’re not weak. You’re not.”

“Then why did he do this?” Mac asks. “Why?”

“Because…”  _ Because he saw something he wanted, and took it. Because your ex made such a mess of your relationship you thought you had to go get drunk to numb the pain. Because your dad screwed up and made a dangerous enemy and brought your whole life crashing down.  _ There’s a whole trail of reasons this isn't Mac’s fault, but somehow she knows anything she says he’ll twist. Make it into a way to blame himself, to see a failure, a weak link. “Because some people are twisted and terrible and they don’t care about anyone but themselves.”

“I should have been able to…” Mac’s voice trails off into another hitching sob. “I tried…” Riley can only imagine how hard he tried. She can see the bruised knuckles, the split lip, the bruises on the forearms that speak of fending off attack.  _ He tried so hard, but it wasn’t enough. _ She feels like storming over to Desi’s place and giving her an earful about breaking Mac, because if he wasn’t drunk he  _ could _ have fought back. 

But then again, it’s not all about Desi. Some of it is about Charlie. And Riley can’t blame a dead man for dying.  _ One thing Desi said about the breakup was that she felt like she was less important than a man Mac buried.  _ For the first few months he’d been obsessed with finding Mason, driving himself to distraction. Riley had helped as much as she could while hunting for a job that would take her with her record.  _ He was absolutely focused on making that man pay. _ And then at the end of the trail had come a suicide note, a body, and a gunshot to the temple.  _ Mason stole Mac’s world, and then he even stole his revenge. _ That’s when the drinking really started. A beer around the campfire on weekends had become beers. Mac had pulled away into himself, and the part of Riley that wants to blame Desi shrinks a little at the memory.  _ She bailed, but...so did all of us. We thought he wanted space, so that’s what we gave him. _

“Mac, you need to stop. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m supposed to be able to protect people,” Mac says sadly. “How am I supposed to protect anyone if I can’t even protect myself?”

“Mac, it’s okay, come on. The water’s cold, you need to get out of there.” Riley can see him shivering from more than just sobs, his skin is covered in goose pimples and his lips and fingers look slightly blue. “Come on, I’ll drive you to the hospital.” She wants him there for more than getting checked up on for diseases.  _ What if he tries something drastic? _

“No hospital,” Mac insists, curling up even more.

“Mac, I’m..I’m scared.” Riley swallows.  _ There, I said it, we’re all sharing the parts of ourselves we don’t want anyone to see tonight. _ “I can’t lose you. I lost Jack, I lost the Phoenix, I lost our family, at least in most of the ways that counted. I am not going to watch you spiral.”

“I’m alright.” Mac tries to get to his feet while still hunched protectively over himself, and it fails. He stumbles against the side of the shower, bare feet sliding on the tile.

“Mac!” Riley grabs for his arm, she’d rather have him flinch from touch than crack his head on the wall. She wraps him in a towel hanging by the shower door and helps him out, letting him sit down on the toilet and start drying off. “Mac, listen to me, don’t do anything we’re going to regret. Don’t make me live with that. I can’t.”

He nods slowly, wavering where he’s sitting. Riley rests her hands on his shoulders. “Listen, I have to go get something. Please don’t be stupid till I get back. Okay?” 

She leaves him sitting and folding one of the paperclips she brought while she rushes back to her room.  _ Guess I have a few of Jack’s shirts for a reason. _ She digs to the bottom of the tote she brought home with her, for the shirt that still smells the most like Jack. She pulls it out and holds it to her nose, tearing up.  _ I was saving this one for if things got really bad. Things are really bad. _

She grabs it and a pair of sweatpants that she also brought for reasons unknown, they’re huge on her. She carries both back into the bathroom, hoping Mac is still okay. 

He is. The paperclip in his hands is a mangled blob of nothing, but he’s still in one piece. She hands him the shirt and pants. 

He takes the shirt from her and pulls it over his head slowly, wincing and grimacing, but she can see relief settle onto him as the material settles over his shoulders.  _ No matter what he says, about Jack leaving, he misses that comfort. _

Once he’s dressed, Riley wraps a blanket around his shoulders. “Okay, hospital now.”

“No, no good,” Mac whispers. “Already showered.”

“That doesn’t mean they can’t get anything,” Riley says.  _ It’s a sick world we live in that my safety or at least some justice might depend on knowing how this works.  _ “They can get a look at your clothes, they might still…”

_ “No,  _ please.” Mac pleads, grabbing her wrist with more strength than she expected him to have. “Please, not now.”

“Okay, not now.”  _ There’s a 72 hour window, right? I can take him first thing in the morning when he’s slept this off. _ She’s not sure if it will be easier to deal with a drunk or sober Mac about this, but she has the feeling fighting him on it will make everything so much worse. “Get some sleep, we can talk about it again in the morning.” 

She tries to make him take the bed, but he won’t. He curls up, a tiny heap of misery and  _ Metallica _ t-shirt, on the couch, and Riley covers him in blankets. He’s snoring by the time she walks away. 

She doesn’t mean to fall asleep googling sexual assault laws and forensics. But she wakes up to the sun shining in her window, the keyboard of her computer imprinted on her cheek, a string of gibberish on the screen...and an empty living room couch.

Mac left. At some point in the night, he got up and walked out and she didn’t even know. She dials his phone, frantic. Desperate. 

When he answers, she almost sobs. “Mac.”

“Riley?” He sounds a little confused, and also a little...angry? “What…”

“You’re alright.”

“Of course I’m alright.” The brittleness in his voice speaks volumes. “What else would I be? I’m  _ fine. _ ” 

“Do you...do you want me to come over?”

“No!” There’s too much sharpness there. Too much anger. “Don’t, not now. I…” He trails off, and then the call ends. Riley looks down at the phone in her hand, then walks into the kitchen grabs a trash bag and some gloves, and pushes Mac’s filthy clothes, still laying on the bathroom floor, into the bag.  _ I almost thought ‘I can take them to Phoenix labs’, but that’s gone. _ Still, it’s all they have. And whether Mac wants to acknowledge it or not, he has to do something.

She drives to his house, parking behind the GTO in the driveway. They’re taking turns looking after Jack’s car and running it, and this was Mac’s month. 

The door is locked, and no amount of pounding gets any response from the other side. Riley feels like this is a repeat of last night. But Mac’s house has other doors.

She runs around to the back deck and climbs up, glancing around. “Mac?” she calls softly. There’s a phone on the kitchen table, she already knows it’s his, she won’t be able to track him. And his running shoes are missing from the pile by the door. Riley turns around, and walks out, climbing back in her car and turning the classic rock station on the radio all the way up before leaning her head on the steering wheel and crying. 

_ Jack, I tried to be you. But I can’t. And I’m going to lose him. _

She can swear she feels the warm hand on the back of her shoulders.  _ “He’s not gone yet baby girl. Don’t give up, don’t let go. Even if he does. Hang onto him. Just keep his head out of the water for me, I’m coming to help you pull him out.”  _

Riley swallows, tosses the awful black bag in the backseat, and pulls out onto the road. She’s got running trails to check. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do or say when she finds Mac. Only that she needs to take the next step. That’s all she can do. All any of them can do. 

_ Just keep him breathing. _


	2. Treading Water

Riley pushes the door open, grimacing at the smell of stale spilled beer and sweat and general...dirt.  _ Mac’s house isn’t supposed to smell like this. _ Smoke, yes. Engine grease and gasoline and chemicals, yes. Not this. Not like her childhood.  _ This was always a place I could forget Elwood existed.  _ Now, it’s a reminder. Of everything she’d rather lock away in the past forever.

“Mac, you home?” She knows better than to ask. He is, he always is. He stopped running when he got too weak to make it a mile without collapsing. She’s not sure this is any better than watching him drive himself to exhaustion every single day. 

Mac seems almost catatonic. He just lies on the couch, downing beers faster than Riley's ever seen him drink. Like he's searching for a little bit of oblivion. 

It took all the convincing she could do to make him get an STD test, and she felt sick to her stomach the entire time they waited for results. When the news came back he was clean, she felt grateful, but Mac clearly didn't. It looks like, having been told nothing else is going to kill him, he's decided to try and do it slowly himself. 

She can see an untouched pie on the counter, Bozer must have stopped in. _ I didn’t tell him, but I didn’t have to, I think he put the pieces together himself. _ She wonders if Desi’s stopped by, checked in to see what destruction she left in her wake.  _ Blaming her isn’t helping, Riley, and you know it. _ But it feels better to have someone to get angry at. And since Mac refuses to do anything about bringing the man who attacked him to justice, Riley only has a few directions to send that anger. 

They need to talk. She needs to at least hear Desi out, because she knows that some of this anger is her defending her little brother against anyone who is remotely responsible for hurting him, and that she’s not always able to think clearly when it comes to her family. Kind of like Jack.  _ I don’t have to make nice and pretend things are fine, but she had no way of knowing this would happen.  _ Time has tempered some of the hot anger she felt that first night, reminded her that breakups aren’t one-sided. But still...Mac is the one sitting on his couch with a beer and a pile of bad memories a mile high. Desi, as far as Riley knows, has moved on.  _ Maybe she won’t even want to talk to me. _

Mac has  _ Die Hard  _ playing on the TV, Jack’s jacket around his shoulders, and a bottle in his hand that looks like the last of the six-pack whose case is on the counter and the rest of the empties strewn around his seat. 

“Hey,” Riley says, sitting down, twisting her necklace in her fingers. “So, I got a job today. Tech service place. It’s not much, but it’ll keep the lights on, and it’s full time. Better than the last gig.” She’s all too glad to leave the first place, and the supervisor who kept trying to pin her in dark corners.  _ So help me there was not going to be another of us going down a dark hole. _

“Great.” His voice is monotone, a sad broken echo of the exuberance she remembers from their past missions.

“And I have some car trouble, with the GTO. It’s making a really weird sound, Mac, you think you could listen to it and tell me what’s up? I don’t want to break Jack’s car, he’ll kill me.”

He gives a noncommittal shrug, starts to stand up, then flops back down. 

"Mac, you have to talk to someone. If not me, a therapist. Please." Riley can’t stand to see him like this. He’s so damn stubborn, and he’s killing himself, but none of them can make him do anything he doesn’t want to do. Jack was the one who had mastered that art. 

“I don’t want to talk, I want to forget,” He says, a touch of real anger slipping into that dead voice. 

“That’s not how this works and you know it. You were an agent, you know burying trauma is a one-way ticket to trouble.” Riley reaches for his arm, grimacing at the awful body odor. “Mac, this is no different from decompressing after torture or a kidnapping or being drugged. You can’t hold onto it, it’s eating you alive.”

"I should never have told you," he snaps, yanking his arm out of her grip. "Should have known you'd never let it go."

"I can't let it go Mac, you're destroying yourself." 

“Then let me!” The shout is so unexpected she jumps. But just as unexpected is the amber glass projectile flying her way. 

She still has her agent's reflexes (actually, these are so much older, the reflexes born of a childhood living with an angry drunk), and Mac's aim is sloppy. The bottle shatters on the stones of the fireplace, and Riley sees Mac's heart shatter too, when he looks at her with startled, grief stricken eyes. 

She feels...numb. Like she can't process the fact that the person she considers a little brother just almost actually hurt her.  _ It feels like the first time Elwood... _ She swallows hard, the memories threatening to sweep her away, to drown her in the same tide Mac is trapped in.  _ Jack said don’t let go. But how do I hold onto the shore and Mac when he’s drifting further out every day? _ If she does, if she returns to a life of walking on eggshells around a man with a bottle in his hand, a life of keeping her voice down and her footsteps silent and any bruises hidden away to protect someone she cares about, in spite of everything, she’ll drown too.  _ I have to save Mac. But I have to save myself, to do it. _ And she doesn’t know what to do. Every choice is wrong. She feels like she’s being torn in half, clinging to both Mac and the shreds of sanity left to her. 

“I don’t...I don’t know what happened.” He’s staring at his hands like they aren’t his. 

Riley looks from him to the shattered glass spilled all over the ground, a few puddles of liquid below them. 

"Riley, please, leave." He sounds like he's about to either scream or sob. "I don't want to hurt you. Please." 

“Mac, I can’t do that.” She’s shaking like a leaf, she wants to run, she’s terrified.  _ I never, ever thought I would be scared of Mac. Never. _ But she isn’t going to leave him here. She can’t.

Mac buries his face in his hands. “I’m ruined, Riley, it’s too late.” 

“No, Mac, it’s not too late, it’s never too late.” 

“I can’t control it, please, Riley, just go.” He curls away from her, and she hears sobs muffled by the couch cushions. 

Her own heart is racing and the room seems to spin as she stands up. She wobbles, catching herself on a chair, stumbling to the door, where she drags in a grateful gasp of fresh air. 

She sits down in the car, shaking. Mac just threw a beer bottle at her. Gentle, quiet Mac who was devastated every time someone got hurt on an op.  _ But people change when they drink like that. _ Her mom hadn’t married an abusive drunk, Riley knows that. Elwood became the man she remembers over the course of a lot of years and a lot more bottles.  _ I don’t want to believe Mac could get that bad. But… _

She knows he can’t be left alone. That he needs help. But she’s no longer the right person to do that, not when his actions almost gave her a panic attack.  _ As much as I try to hide it, the next time he sees me, he’ll see that I’m a little bit afraid of him, and that will make it all so much worse. _

She calls Jack, even though she knows he won’t answer and the voicemail box is full. A part of her wants to scream and smash the phone against the ground, for all the good it’s doing her right now, but that kind of blind anger is what got a bottle flung at her a few minutes ago, and she can’t be another part of the cycle. Instead, she calls a number she promised herself and the owner she’d keep her hands off.

“Matty, Mac needs you.”

She abridges the story the best she can, while making sure Matty knows exactly how bad it is.  _ Matty the Hun can get him off that couch, or at least I hope so. She won’t flinch in the face of anything he can throw at her, physical or verbal. _ Riley turns up the radio and closes her eyes.

_ I’m so sorry Jack, but I’m not enough. I’m broken and messed up too.  _

She tries to listen for the faint voice, the one that gets fainter every day, that promises if she holds on someone is coming for her. But all she hears is the voice on the radio.

“He walked the streets a soldier, he fought the world alone…”

Her heart clenches, and she throws the car in reverse, backing out in the the street and driving out of town, gunning the engine. 

“You can’t think of dying when the bottle’s your best friend…”

She’s driving as fast as Jack ever has, pushing the GTO till the engine whines. All the way until she reaches the little lookout where Jack brought her after the first time Phoenix was breached, after she shot that man in the server room. When she needed to stop her brain from moving.

“Eighteen and life, you know...your crime is time, and it’s eighteen and life to go.”

She turns off the radio, climbs out, and sits against the car, leaning her head back against the hot black metal and starting to cry. 

The wind carries the faintest echo of a voice. “It’s okay, baby girl. I got you, I got you.” Riley turns her face up to the sun and imagines it’s Jack’s arms warm around her. And she cries until there are no more tears left. Then she gets in the car, turns around, and drives back home in the silence. 

She gets a text from Matty two hours later.  **Landing in LAX. I’ll tell you how he is when I see him.**

Riley breathes a faint sigh of relief and goes to the kitchen to heat overcooked spaghetti noodles without sauce. She’s done what she can, and the rest is up to Mac and Matty.

She wonders if Mac will resent her telling Matty and bringing her in, but she can’t bring herself to care.  _ If he hates me, he hates me, I’d rather he was alive to do that than slowly shriveling away and dying.  _

Apparently, she’s right about his reaction to her intervention methods. He stops returning her calls at all. Or her texts. She finds out about him through updates from Matty. Still not seeing a therapist, but at least leaving the house. Finding part-time work with a mechanic, keeping his hands busy. Finishing up the classes he needs to get a teaching certificate. 

And then Matty gets a position of her own, and she’s flying off to Colorado. Riley thinks about going to see Mac, after work, on the weekends. But she can always find an excuse, something else to do. She tells herself it’s for him, that seeing her was bringing back bad memories, that he wanted her to leave, he told her to stay away. She doesn’t want to admit to the dark part of her own mind that’s still a bit afraid. Afraid of what she’ll find if she does go back. So she stays away. 

The next time she sees him, he's walking in with a mission. He doesn't want to talk about the past, she can tell from the nonchalant way he brushes off losing touch. Pretending it was a slow, gentle drift apart instead of an explosive rift like the one that breaks California off in that dumb disaster movie Jack loves. It feels like there’s a chasm between them, not just a service desk. 

He says he's fine.  _ I know he’s lying. _ She says she's not.  _ It’s the truth.  _ She’s so far from good, or okay. Not when a thousand versions of that night play out in her head every time she closes her eyes. But she lets him assume it's the job. 

She doesn't tell him she hacked the security cams of all the bars in the area until she found the one he visited that night. Doesn't tell him she used the facial rec software she might be illegally keeping on her computer to trace the identity of the man who walked Mac out that night. Doesn't tell him she dug and dug until she got proof of something illegal that didn't involve dragging Mac into it. Doesn't tell him the man's doing thirty to life for the previously unsolved armed robbery he committed five years ago. 

Instead, she listens to him invite her back into his life. And she wants to come back. She’s ready, now, she can handle whatever happens, she’s stronger. She can protect her own heart and hopefully his, too. 

So she jumps over the desk and gives him a fist bump. Not a hug, not yet, because she can’t be sure how healed he truly is, she can still smell a bit of the alcohol on him. But this is a start. 

“I’m in.”


	3. Rescue

When the Jack voice in her head said “keep his head out of the water” Riley thought of that in a metaphorical sense. She didn’t expect she was going to watch Mac literally leap into a pit full of water, right in front of her. 

The way he just throws himself in without a second thought makes her wonder if he’s not doing nearly as well as he’s been pretending. He’s been putting on a good face, but she saw the anger seething under the surface when he found out Russ Taylor was lying to them.  _ He wasn’t just angry about that. He was angry about everything and it needed an outlet.  _

Now, as she watches the water thicken around him, watches him completely disregard his safety to try and save the world one more time, she feels helpless. When he struggles to get out, she can’t reach him to pull him up. She almost suggests creating a human chain, like the barrel of monkeys Jack used to find at the house no matter where Diane hid it, but when she turns around Russ and Desi are gone.  _ Fine, abandon him, save your own skin. _

Mac looks up at her, and there isn’t even fear in his eyes, just a blank empty acceptance, a sort of nothingness that terrifies her because that’s how he looked  _ that night. _ “The gel should work, but you should get to a safe distance just in case, okay?”

Riley shakes her head.  _ ‘I’m coming to help you pull him out’.  _ If Mac dies Jack will...he won’t kill  _ her, _ but it might be worse, he might kill himself. And besides Jack, there’s Mac, and she will  _ not  _ let him die alone.  _ I let go once. I will never do it again.  _ “I'm not leaving you!

“Riley, you need to leave. Now.”

“No.” She stares down at him, hoping to somehow convey everything she means by saying that. “I’m not going anywhere.” _Everyone else has left you. Even I left you, no matter how good a reason I had._ She knows it’s everyone’s fault and no one’s at the same time. _Things are messy, and complicated. I thought I knew that, being an agent, but it turns out normal life is somehow even worse._ Somehow it’s managed to make her see the imperfections in all of them, in herself too. _When we were agents, we were heroes. There was black and white, we could tell ourselves at the end of the day that we made the world a better place and saved lives. Now we’re just ordinary human beings, trying to make it in this world, and that’s messy and tangled up and_ real.

It hits her in a wave, in a slamming awareness like  _ she’s  _ the one in that pit and the torpedo just made impact. Before the Phoenix went under, life was moving too fast to think. But now all the pieces are settling into place. All the imperfect, broken, glued-together pieces of who they really are. All the mistakes and flaws and the good parts too. 

_ So maybe we aren’t the knights in shining armor we pretended to be. We were young and naive. And now that armor is cracked and tarnished, and we’re barely standing. _ But maybe for all that, they’re only stronger. 

And the first tears begin to burn her eyes when she realizes Jack knew. All along, this is what Jack has always known, has always been. The tarnished knight, the one who has lived long enough to see himself do things he regrets. And suddenly, her throat seizes up with the need to tell him she finally  _ understands. _ Why he left her and Mom all those years ago. Finally, finally, she can truly forgive him for it. 

But Jack didn’t let one mistake make him miss out on repairing their relationship. He didn’t let it stop him from reaching out again, and Riley doesn’t need to let walking out of Mac’s life be a reason to hold him at arms’ length forever. She just hopes they get a  _ chance  _ to fix things, because they’re running out a time and Mac is surrendering all to easily to the undertow dragging him away one last time.

“Mac, we’re gonna figure something out.” She says frantically. “What do we have, what can we use?”

“It’s too late, Riles.” His voice is hoarse. “Get out of here now.” 

And then there’s the heavy, bone-thumping thud of helicopter rotors, and Riley looks up, hair whipping around her face, to see a chopper lowering itself, and someone tossing out a rope. 

Russ is flying and Desi is in the back holding the rope.  _ They didn’t abandon us, they went to try and save Mac.  _ Riley bites her lip.  _ They’re not all bad either. We’ve all made mistakes lately and we’re all trying to atone. _ She grabs the coil of rope and throws it down to Mac, watching him wrap it around his wrists and arms and grip on tightly. 

The chopper starts pulling upward, and Riley watches Mac grimace, muscles straining, as his arms are pulled above his head. Riley watches the rope strain and slither over his arms, and the raw red lines it leaves behind. She hears a soft cry of pain as Mac’s grip loosens, and the rope comes free.

“It’s no use, it’s like quicksand. I’m working against thousands of pounds of pressure, I can’t hold on.” Riley hears tears in Mac’s voice now, and whether it’s from the pain of his rope-burned hands or from the realization that he’s actually going to die setting in, she can’t be sure.

“Mac, do  _ not _ give up on me.” She looks down at him. “Because I’m not leaving unless they get you out of there. You go kaboom, I go k-kaboom.” Her voice cracks on the last word.  _ Jack’s not here and he’s not coming, not in time to save us. But maybe he left me with enough of himself that I can save us for him _ .

Mac looks up at her, probably startled to hear that familiar phrase coming from an unfamiliar voice, and then his eyes widen. “Riley, throw me your backpack. I need to make a harness.” 

She does, and watches, heart racing, mouth dry, as Mac fastens the straps around his shoulders and then plunges down below the surface. 

Bozer’s voice counts down in her ear as she watches the liquid still.  _ Keep his head above water. _ She tried. But the truth is, holding Mac up might not be enough to save him. Maybe she has to let him go under, let him accept what’s happened and feel that pain, before she can really save him at all. 

And then the rope goes taut, the chopper pulls up, and Mac emerges from the slimy gel, gasping and clinging to the rope, but alive. And not a moment too soon, because Riley watches as, below his dangling feet, the torpedo’s greenish lights flash into view, moving fast, and then slow and stall, trapped in the same gel that Mac couldn’t escape. 

The chopper lowers Mac to the ground, and Riley races over to him, helping him undo the harness with shaky fingers. The knots have pulled tight from the strain, and the rope and straps are slick with the slimy gel, as are Mac’s own hands. And he’s trembling, she can’t tell whether that’s adrenaline, fear, the chill of the water, or all three. 

He’s tugging at the straps and rope almost desperately. Riley fumbles her own knife out of a pocket (not hers, really, one of Jack’s, an old folding knife he gave her that he’s had for years, a little extra protection) and starts slicing through the material. The backpack’s ruined anyway, it’s not like she’s ever going to be able to get this gunk off it. 

“Hey, hey, Mac, it’s okay, you’re safe,” She says gently. He nods, taking deep, shaky breaths, slowly calming down. “You okay for a hug?”

He looks up at her, and for a second she sees alarm flash across his face, but then he nods. And she does something she hasn’t done in almost a year, wraps her arms around Mac and holds him close. He feels tense in her arms, but then relaxes, almost melting into her grasp, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. And she is suddenly all too keenly aware that this is the first really affectionate touch he’s experienced since that awful, awful night.  _ He hasn’t let anyone get this close. _ And she never, ever wants to let go.

She has to, when sirens scream and paramedics swarm and start asking a million questions. They wrap Mac in a blanket and lead him off to an ambulance and Riley turns around to see Russ and Desi walking up. 

“Hey,” She says awkwardly. “Um...thanks. For helping.”

Desi nods, Russ gives her a faint smile.

“I...um...kind of thought you both just ran off,” She admits, scuffing the toe of one combat boot on the concrete.  _ If I want to have a serious conversation with Mac later about owning the things that have happened and taking responsibility and being honest to start healing, I guess I have to take my own advice. Even if it sucks.  _ “I didn’t really trust either of you a lot, and I guess I have a lot of apologizing to do.”

“I suppose I deserve that,” Russ replies. “I haven’t done much to earn your respect, Miss Davis, I’m aware. But I’d like the chance to try.” 

Riley nods, holding out a hand to shake his. He frowns at the slime still dripping off her fingers, but then takes it and shakes it firmly. “You’ve got a deal,” Riley says. 

She turns to Desi, who looks almost as shamefaced as Riley feels. “I guess you didn’t have any right to expect I wasn’t going to bail on Mac all over again,” She says quietly. “But...just to clear the air, Riley, I’m sorry. And I get why you haven’t wanted to talk to me and been giving the the cold shoulder since I got back.”

“You’re not the only one who left him when he needed them,” Riley says. “I bailed too. Different reasons, but...I was just trying to protect myself. And I guess that’s what you were doing too.”

Desi sighs. “Part of it, yes. But I made a lot of excuses to myself, and none of them were all that good.” She glances at the ambulance where Mac’s being checked over. “And I guess the reason you had to bail is kind of all my fault.”

“What?” Riley asks. 

“I’m a club bouncer, Riley. I see a lot of people who’ve been burned before, and I try to keep things from getting out of hand for them again. I know the signs of someone who doesn’t want something, who’s had some bad experiences. And the second Mac walked in, I knew exactly what happened.” She shakes her head. “I never meant for that to happen, but…”

“We can’t change anything about the past,” Riley says. “There’s no point in beating a dead horse, as Jack’s always put it.” She meets Desi’s eyes for the first time in a long time. “What say we bury it and move forward, alright?” She raises an eyebrow. “But if you hurt him again, I will bury you.”

“That’s fair.” 

And then a paramedic shows up to reassure them that Mac is going to be okay, and Riley breathes a tiny sigh of relief before running over to hug him again. His hands and arms are bandaged, and he winces a little when they brush against her this time, but he’s alive and he’s going to be okay. 

He doesn’t hug Desi, but he gives her an awkward one-armed half hug that Riley can tell is a step in the right direction.

Things sort of feel like a blur after that. Russ announces he’s bought the Phoenix, and that they can start working for him. Riley isn’t exactly sure how she feels about it, but he did say he wanted to give her a chance to trust him. And she’s done judging people by what they have done. It’s whatever he’s going to do that counts now. So she agrees.  _ Besides, whether Mac agrees or not, I’ll have access to more ways to check in, make sure he’s really doing okay.  _

She’s glad when Mac says yes too. She can tell he missed this, and honestly she thinks that he really does belong here. 

“This is home.” 

It feels like he’s absolving them of guilt for whatever happened too. That he wants to get back what they lost. But to do that, she knows, he still has to come to terms with the past.

The bonfire that night is the first one in a long time that feels  _ right. _ That doesn’t seem full of strained emotions and bottled up tempers and its own volatility waiting to spark. She notices that Mac doesn’t touch a beer bottle. She isn’t drinking, herself, either. She doesn’t want to remind him of anything. 

Eventually everyone starts drifting away. First Russ, then Matty, then Desi, and finally even Bozer. Until it’s just Riley and Mac, sitting on the deck, looking out over the city. 

Riley figures if she doesn’t start the conversation, no one will.  _ He’s not going to get that angry again, he’s better now. _ But she still glances toward the fireplace, imagining she can see shards of amber glass. 

“Mac?”

“Hm?” He sounds tired, she wonders if this is a bad time. But she knows if she puts it off now she’ll keep finding excuses, keep saying ‘another time’ and there will never be a right time. 

“We...we need to talk.”

He stiffens. 

“Back there at the water plant...”

He cuts her off. “I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me. I never wanted that. Ever.” His voice is soft and choked.

“That’s not what I meant. Mac, you couldn’t get out on your own, you said so yourself. And it took the rest of us helping to get you safe.” She reaches out slowly for his hand. “If you can accept our help to save your life, can you accept it to...to talk? About what happened last year?”

_ Last year. It’s been a year.  _

“It’s different,” Mac whispers. 

“How? Mac, none of us think any less of you for not being able to save yourself all alone in that hole. And I promise none of us are going to judge you for what happened to you.” She waits until he meets her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault, Mac. And the only person who thinks it is is you.”

He sighs slightly, leaning his head back on the back of the chair and closing his eyes. “But it’ll change things.”

“You think it hasn’t already? Mac, Bozer was afraid to hug you because you’re cringing away from physical contact. I...I…” She doesn’t say the rest, wondering if she’s going to only make him feel worse. “Mac, I think they’re all imagining the worst. The truth is going to make things easier. I promise.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Mac whispers. “What if they all think I’m broken? What if Russ thinks this means I shouldn’t be an agent anymore?”

“We don’t have to tell him now. Or ever.” Riley says. “But...the people who watched everything fall apart for you? We’re all worried, Mac. We all want you to be able to heal. But trust me, shoving everything bad down inside and pretending you’re fine can’t last. Someday, it’s going to be too much, and then things will be so much worse. Let us help you, Mac, that’s what we’re here for.”

She pulls out a sat phone and lays it on the chair arm. “I don’t have to be the one you talk to first, if you don’t want. But...you could try calling Jack.”

“We can’t get in touch with him.” 

“Perks of working with Russ Taylor. Lots of string pulling,” Riley says. “He got a twenty-four hour window for us.”

“When did this happen?” Mac asks. 

“While you were critiquing the scientific accuracy of Bozer’s script.” She looks up. “I told him we needed to make sure Jack knows he has a job waiting for him when he comes home.” They told him about the Phoenix falling. She thought he should know it’s rising again. “But...I think you should be the one to tell him that.”

“I can’t.” Mac swallows. “I can’t talk to him, I can’t risk letting him know what happened. He’ll hate himself for not being here. For not being able to protect me.”

Riley sighs. She knows he’s right, that Jack will be furious at every single thing that kept him away from Mac while his kid was hurt. But she also knows he’s already well aware that something happened. He had to have read it in Riley’s voice the few times she got spotty connection. He had to have pulled on the threads with Matty when he got in contact with her. And whether Mac took his calls or not, either way Jack would have figured out that something was terribly, horribly wrong.

“What do I say?” Mac whispers.

Riley looks down at her boots. “Mac, I don’t know what to tell you to say. I’m sorry. But it’s not my conversation to have with him.”

“Can I...can I try it with you first?”

She nods. They sit there and talk until the fire dies, until the ashes go black and the night air gets cold and both of them start to shiver. Mac gets angry, and cries, and throws one thing, but it’s just a pillow Bozer had on a chair behind his back, and Riley only flinches a little. She knows these phases, it’s how she felt when she finally started to deal with everything Elwood had done.  _ I hated him, and then I grieved for the childhood I never got to have, and then I hated everything for a while. _ So she sits and listens to Mac’s emotions spilling out everywhere, puddles of tears and the fragile fragments of a broken heart covering the floor instead of glass and leftover beer.

She finally tells him that the man who hurt him isn’t going to be able to do it again, and when he hears that he crumbles, sobs of relief shaking his shoulders, and she has the sudden horrible thought that ever since that night he’s been living his life on constant alert, like it’s a mission all the time. That despite not wanting to have his case investigated, he was living in fear of being tracked down, hurt and used and broken all over again. 

And finally, finally, Mac picks up the sat phone and dials the only number in its contacts. When she hears the person on the other end pick up, and a joyful, half sobbed cry of “Jack!” from Mac, she stands up and tiptoes to the door. This isn’t her conversation to intrude on. 

When she wakes up in the morning there’s a text on her phone from Mac.  **Talked to Jack, told him everything. We’ll be ok. Eventually.**

She smiles sadly.  _ That’s all we’re going to get. Okay, eventually. _ Nothing is solved overnight, or with one phone call. Mac will still need her, still need all of them. There will be bad days, and bad nights, and bad missions, she’s sure of it. There will be more yelling, and crying, and maybe even a few more thrown things. But Riley feels like now she’s strong enough to help Mac bear that burden. Because just like him, she doesn’t have to do it alone.

She picks up the second sat phone Russ gave her, and dials its contact.

“Hey Jack. Yes, I’m okay. I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is PLANNED to be a three part fic, we'll see if I can hold myself to that...but this certainly isn't the end of the fic, so don't freak out TOO MUCH...I'll make things better I swear...


End file.
